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Lance Sergeant<\/p>\n
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I served for ten years in The Grenadier Guards, and I did three tours in Afghanistan. My first tour there was in 2006, my second was in 2007, and my third tour, which is when I got injured, was in October 2009. My injuries, which I sustained on 28th October, resulted in the loss of both my legs, my right one above the knee and my left one below the knee.<\/p>\n
My role in Afghanistan was a recce Commander. I was in charge of a Section which would get sent out before the main force to survey the area and make sure there were no Taliban in the vicinity, as well as making sure the route was clear for the main body of men. We\u2019d go to a certain area, take over a compound, and stay there for two or three weeks. We wanted to get a feel for what daily life was like\u2014see what the villagers are like, note if there is activity in the morning or at night, just trying to collect as much information as possible. We were based in Sangin, which is a small area but quite a rough one. A lot of guys have been killed or injured there. We were sent there to give protection to forces while they were building a bridge for the Afghan people to use.<\/p>\n
The day I was injured, I\u2019d just arrived back from a routine patrol. Then some engineers came into our compound and asked for some guys to give them some fire support, in case they got contacted. My lads were already kitted up, so I said we’d go. We try not to use the main roads because of the risk of IEDs, so I told my men to go through a cornfield. My front guy, who was checking the ground was clear, stepped over the IED, and then I stepped on it. Bang, next thing I know, I\u2019m doing somersaults in the air.<\/p>\n
After the explosion, I had a lot of ringing in my ears and the dust was everywhere. I thought originally that my front man was the one who was injured, not me. But as the dust settled, I realised I was sitting in a crater. That\u2019s when I realised there was blood everywhere and my left leg was missing. The leg was sitting upright in the field, I could see it a couple of metres away. My right leg looked like it had been steamrolled over, it was just mush. It was being held on by bits of tissue and muscle, veins and tendons. I thought I was going to die as I was losing a lot of blood.<\/p>\n
Literally within a minute or so we got contacted by the Taliban. They were shooting everywhere. As I put tourniquets on both my legs, I was telling the guys\u2014I had a young Section at the time\u2014to get rounds down and to bring a medic forward.
Everything happens so quickly. Within three or four minutes the guys were on me, stopping the bleeding and giving me morphine. One guy was on the radio getting a medical team in. To me, it was like everything was in slow motion and that time felt like hours, but it was literally a matter of minutes. The Taliban were still shooting everywhere, all round the ground. Then the medic got to me, and started fixing me up properly.<\/p>\n
Within fifteen minutes, I was on a helicopter and I was given ketamine, which knocked me straight out. Within half an hour I was in the operating theatre back at Bastion. It’s incredibly fast \u2013 in 2006 or 2007, it would have taken over an hour to get a guy on an operating table. I was at Bastion for about a day and a half and then I got transferred to Selly Oak Hospital. I then had another twelve or thirteen operations to clean up the stumps. That\u2019s the main issue\u2014it\u2019s not really the blast, it\u2019s the infection risk afterwards. It sets in straight away if you don\u2019t catch it.
I was at Selly Oak for about three or four weeks. I remember I just wanted to get out and start rehab, I wanted to get walking. I had Christmas off with my girlfriend\u2014now my wife\u2014and then I started at Headley Court. I was there for four or five weeks at a time. They do put you through your paces, so it was really tiring. My main goal was to walk down the aisle at my wedding, and I concentrated on that for a year.<\/p>\n
Being in the same boat as the other lads at Headley really helped. The injuries vary, but everyone is included in that military banter. They always say, \u201cIf you’ve got one leg missing, you\u2019re not really injured. If it\u2019s below the knee, it\u2019s just a scratch really.\u201d That\u2019s how it is and that\u2019s how it\u2019s always been in the Army. You have that kind of mentality. You\u2019ve just got to get on with things, you don\u2019t feel sorry for yourself, and that\u2019s the way it\u2019s done. I think that mentality develops through training and because you go through so much stuff with the lads. When you\u2019re on tour, you\u2019re with the same blokes for six months straight, whether you\u2019re going for a shower or getting shot at. Even if I don\u2019t speak to the guys for a while, as soon as I see them again, it\u2019s like we\u2019ve not been apart. You have that closeness. I know that if I needed someone, I\u2019d ring someone I used to be in the Army with.<\/p>\n
I accepted that I wasn\u2019t going to be in the Army any more pretty much straight away after I was injured. I\u2019ve left the Army now, and I buy and let properties\u2014I invested all of my compensation into houses. Me and my wife have got a little boy too. I\u2019ve had 21 operations in total, and thankfully have no more scheduled for the near future. That\u2019s quite lucky really, as the guys who got injured at the same time as me are still going through operations.<\/p>\n
Day to day, it\u2019s the little things that I get annoyed about. You go from being able to do everything to struggling with small things. I know that I won\u2019t be able to play football with my son. I won\u2019t be able to go to the park and go on climbing frames, and things like that. It\u2019s not really the big things\u2014I\u2019ve cycled round Europe, I\u2019ve gone diving in Thailand and things like that, but it\u2019s the small things I can get bothered about. But I just try and get on with it.<\/p>\n
I think face to face people don\u2019t regard me differently, but maybe behind doors they do. I\u2019ve lost touch with a couple of my supposedly close friends. I\u2019m quite stubborn and I just want to power forward with my life now. I think they think that\u2019s a bit smug, but it\u2019s just the way I am. I think people might think, \u201cWell, he\u2019s not doing too badly for himself, is he? He\u2019s got this and he\u2019s got that.\u201d But it\u2019s not like that at all. I\u2019d give it all up in a heartbeat, I\u2019d live in a caravan for the rest of my life if I could get my legs back. But I can\u2019t, so I have to make the best of what I\u2019ve got. I just want to get on with things. I want to do things that I never thought possible. It\u2019s all for my son and for my wife, that\u2019s who I do it for.<\/p>\n
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Lance SergeantNathan CumberlandI served for ten years in The Grenadier Guards, and I did three tours in Afghanistan. My first tour there was in 2006, my second was in 2007, and my third tour, which is when I got injured, was in October 2009. My injuries, which I sustained on 28th October, resulted in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3588,"menu_order":30,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3562","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n